


Chrysalis

by Ancalime1



Series: In Silico [2]
Category: Tron - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Pre-Tron: Legacy, Tron wakes up after being ported to the Grid, grid politics, lots of sci-fi jargon, sequel to 'Ported'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 05:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7702495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancalime1/pseuds/Ancalime1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tron's faith in the Users crumbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chrysalis

**Author's Note:**

> Tron wakes up after having been ported from the Encom system to the Grid.

**Chrysalis**

 

He remained in stasis for approximately two millicycles.

Two things he was able to comprehend during this time: a fleeting, rippling movement, and a hushed exchange of voices. But shortly after he had begun to examine both stimuli, his processing unit flickered out. And when it had rebooted again, both movement and voices had ceased.

He was currently undergoing reconfiguration—that much he understood. Somehow he had been immensely damaged, forcing his processor to power down while self-reparation procedures took place.

As his code continued to repair itself, his other senses began to come back online. He now gathered that he lay in a cool, dark place with walls as sleek as silicon. But his visual input yielded little more than that, and a quick scan informed him that his memory files were inaccessible at this time for whatever reason. Thus any information he had of this place was either just out of reach or otherwise nonexistent.

A dull thumping noise won his attention, a noise he knew to be an indication of someone approaching. _Footsteps,_ he thought idly. Not that he particularly cared. The name of the sound was irrelevant; the action itself had interested him far more, as it meant that he would no longer be alone.

The newcomer’s arrival seemed to catalyze his repairs, to his amazement. His vision had suddenly returned to full force, and his sight was immediately clogged with all sorts of colors and patterns. Overwhelmed with the new stimulus, he elected to power down his visual input—no, _eyes_ they were called. But when he opened them again, both colors and patterns had arranged themselves into an ensemble of flickering images and intricate webs of circuitry.

Now he was now given the luxury of viewing his guest, a figure clad entirely in black, a singular stripe of light running down his jacket. A shaggy mop of hair sat upon his head, and he wore a toothy grin on his face. “Good to see you again, man,” he heard him say.

Something pinged in the back of his processor, something he knew he was supposed to recognize. “Sorry… what?” he croaked, surprised that he could even speak. The words felt strange on his lips, but he ignored the sensation and proceeded anyways. “Who are you?”

The grin slowly fell off of his visitor’s face. “Still reconfiguring, then,” he said quietly. He folded his arms and bowed his head, appearing to be in deep thought. “I didn’t want to disrupt your repairs,” he said after a while. “Thing is, I’m running way behind schedule. I’m gonna have to sync you up with your disc and get you going.”

He stared at the newcomer blankly. “Come again?” 

The man smiled wanly. “Eh, nothing for you to worry about.” He began to rummage through his coat pockets, and produced a curious-looking device just micros later. It was a circular object, o-shaped and pulsing a soft white. “Take this and latch it onto the disc dock on your back,” the man instructed. Noticing his skepticism the man added, “You’ll feel better, I promise.”

He stared at the object being offered to him with mounting interest. A strange sensation washed over him just then, and he found himself drawn to the object. But just as his excitement grew, so did his vigilance, and he tentatively reached out and grasped onto it.

It felt warm in his hands. Very faintly he could hear a gentle thrum, and he could swear that the circuits lining his body began to glow brighter than before. And then, as if driven by instinct, he reached behind him and clasped the object onto his back.

He felt himself begin to sway in and out of consciousness, as if on the verge of sleep mode. Images began to overcome his processor, and it wasn’t long before he realized that those images were his _memories._

_“That’s Tron—he fights for the users.”_

_“Yori, it’s me! Don’t you remember?”_

_“You really think the users are still out there?”_

_“Prepare to terminate!”_

He began to tremble, feeling as if his circuits would overload. All his pain, everything he had forgotten… it was all coming back to him now in one massive wave of electricity. Just microcycles ago he wanted to remember—and now that he _did_ remember, he wanted to forget.

In the midst of all this, he could see the man standing on the far side of the room, face carven with sadness and… hope. His processor pinged once more, this time informing him that this man was someone he had met before—more specifically, he was a user by the name of Flynn.

“This… this can’t be real,” he choked. “Flynn… What are you doing here? And where is _here_?” He paused, grappling for the right words. His processor immediately became inundated with questions, so many questions. It seemed to him like cycles before he finally whispered, “What’s happening to me?”

Concern began to shadow Flynn’s face. “Whoa. Take it easy, pal.” Bending down so that the two were now face-to-face he said, “Look at me. Do you remember me? Do you know who I am?”

Something seemed to lodge itself in his throat. “You… you’re a user,” he stammered. “ _The_ user. You deleted the MCP!”

“Now, now. Don’t make my head bigger than what it is,”said Flynn jokingly. “Besides, I couldn’t have done a damn thing without you, Tron.”

Once more his processor pinged, much stronger and far more intensely than before. The last word Flynn had spoken kept reverberating in his ears, like an echo inside a yawning tunnel. _Tron._ What a strange word. And yet he felt as if he should have recognized it somehow, and should have never forgotten it in the first place. _Tron._ Why…?

Flynn had obviously noticed the confusion on his face. Arching an eyebrow, he prompted, “You do remember your name, don’t you?”

The object inside his throat seemed to swell as he wracked his processor. He had discovered records of myriad names within his recovering memory, and ‘Tron’ didn’t correspond with any of them. Could it really be _his_ name? Why then couldn’t he remember it?

A soft voice echoed in the back of his mind, a voice from an earlier file: _“That’s Tron—he fights for the users.”_

The memory came crashing back, and what he saw overwhelmed him. Yes, Kevin Flynn was there. But he was there, too. This time he could remember.

“My name is... Tron,” he said at last. “I… I don’t know why that was so difficult to recall….”

Flynn offered him a sympathetic look. “Yeah. My fault. Had to reconfigure you, make you compatible with this system. Of course, the whole process turned out to be a bit messier than I expected—”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Tron. “ _This_ system?”

“Yeah. Can’t you tell the difference?”

Tron cast a hasty glance around the room. Dark, blue circuitry, more circuitry, more dark… “I see the circuits are a different color,” he said bitterly. “The #CEF6F5 is a nice touch.”

Flynn gave an amused smile. “I don’t remember progamming you to be sarcastic,” he chuckled. “Must’ve been Alan’s work.”

“Alan-1?” gasped Tron. “Is he here?”

Flynn’s mouth twitched. “Uh, no,” he said, throwing a hand behind his head. “He came by earlier, though, to check in on you.”

“And I missed him,” said Tron, crestfallen. “I would have like to have met him… though I don’t suppose I would have recognized him.”

“You will,” promised Flynn. “Besides, he’ll want to see you, now that you’re up and running.”

There was no response from Tron. The program himself had communicated with Alan-1 on multiple occasions already; several of his memory files indicated instances in which he had been standing alone in an Input/Output tower, awaiting instructions from his user. Tron calculated that to meet him in person would be immensely different than this such scenario, and would at least give him some evidence that Flynn was not the only user existent.

“Flynn,” said Tron at last, “where are the others? Where are Yori and Dumont and… Ram….”

Waves of agonizing realization crashed into him, and he began to tremble. _Of course._ Ram had been derezzed, and so had Dumont. And Yori? Had she been ported to this system, as Tron had been? Or had she too been eliminated? Wordlessly he pleaded Flynn for answers, only to find that the user himself had been silenced by grief.

Cycles seemed to have passed before Flynn spoke again. “Yori is alive and well, but the others… man, I’d have hoped you would have remembered.”

“I did,” rasped Tron. He wished he hadn’t.

“You’ve gotta understand, Tron,” Flynn continued. “Bringing you here has caused you a lot of pain, and it’s my fault. I… I don’t think I could do the same to Yori, or to any other program. No one else should have to pay for my mistakes.”

 _But I do,_ thought Tron bitterly. _I have to pay. And now I’m all alone._

“Please, Tron,” said Flynn softly. “You do understand, don’t you?”

He did. He understood, and Flynn knew it. Glancing once more at the worn gashes of code across his chest, and imagining Yori in a such a state as this, he murmured a faint “Yes.”

Flynn placed a hand on his shoulder. And while the gesture was well-intended, Tron could not help but flinch away from the touch. And how could he not? How could he let himself be comforted by the man who had taken everything away?

Flynn bowed his head. “I… can’t begin to imagine how you must be feeling right now. If there’s anything I can do, anything you want….”

“What I _want_ is no longer functionally possible,” cut in Tron. “Home, Flynn. Home is what I had wanted. But you’ve made it clear that I am here to stay. So tell me, what is it you intend to do with me? And what is it that this system can accomplish that the other could not?”

“You’re beginning to sound like Alan,” muttered Flynn, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I brought you here because I know what you’re capable of. This system—the Grid—it’s gonna change the user world forever. And you, you are instrumental to that change, Tron.”

“But I’m not a user. I’m just a security program,” said Tron bitterly.

“A security program who fights for the users,” put in Flynn. “But more than that, you’re my friend. If I’m going to build a new world, then I’m going to do it alongside you.”

“Your… friend?” echoed Tron. What an interestingly inappropriate word for such a relationship. He stared at his circuit-laced hands, not wishing to meet Flynn’s gaze.

“Yes, Tron. My friend.” Tentatively he reached out and grasped Tron’s hands and, when there were no signs of protest, pulled him into a tight embrace. “I know that Yori and the others are gone, and I know that I could never close the hole that they left. But you won’t be alone here. I… I’m here for you.”

“I believe you,” whispered Tron. _Not that I have any other choice._

“Good.” Flynn unwrapped his arms from the program, and offered him a small smile. “Now, you need to rest for a good long while. These have been a strenuous couple of cycles, and I don’t need you up and crashing on me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” replied Tron flatly.

“I know you wouldn’t,” laughed Flynn. He clapped a hand to the program’s back. “Take care, Tron. I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

Tron did not watch him go, did not see the shadow of concern on the user’s face as he exited the room. Rather, his processor had become overwhelmed with thoughts of Yori, who by now would have discovered his absence. Would she know that he would not be coming back? Or did she think, perhaps, that he had been derezzed? Angrily his thought turned once more to Flynn, to the man who had once liberated him. He felt enslaved once more, trapped under the thumb of a supposedly benevolent user. _I believed in the users because I had believed in freedom_ , he thought. _But_ _Flynn and the Master Control Program... they’re one and the same._

This he was almost certain of—his calculations confirmed that. Yet something in his conscience insisted that such a statement simply wasn’t the truth, despite the logical evidence.

He didn’t know what to believe anymore—not in freedom, not in the users, not in himself. He decided that he would believe in nothing, and trust no one.

He clasped his hands to head and shut his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want Tron to be so bitter, but I also didn't want him mindlessly worshiping the users. Maybe this serves as a foundation for the genesis of Rinzler, I don't know.


End file.
